


i cried a constellation for you

by lmao_thunder, starksnack



Series: diana and kait's stevetonytober scrapbook 2020 [2]
Category: Marvel's Avengers (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crying, Happy Ending, Idiots in Love, Jealous Steve Rogers, Jealous Tony Stark, Jealousy, M/M, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pining, Protective Steve Rogers, Star Tears, it's like hanahaki, kind of, star tear disease, 星涙病
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27339013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmao_thunder/pseuds/lmao_thunder, https://archiveofourown.org/users/starksnack/pseuds/starksnack
Summary: Star Tear Disease. The internet tells him it’s deadly. It's not a very well-documented disease, officially at least, because it's been romanticized in the media for years but it's very real. As real as the glittering abominations clumped in his palm and soaked in tears. A grin curls onto Tony’s face. Maybe he’ll have enough to make his own American flag of unrequited love. Perhaps Steve would get a kick out of it.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: diana and kait's stevetonytober scrapbook 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965901
Comments: 15
Kudos: 115





	i cried a constellation for you

**Author's Note:**

> lmao_thunder: As a Stevetony who cried over the pure epitome of Stevetony gay that is Marvel's Avengers, well it was only a matter of time before I wrote something for this version of the boys. This is the first time I've written for the Star Tears trope so hopefully it's not completely horrible. 
> 
> This fic is truly a labor of love and I want to thank starksnack for being so amazing. She pushes through everything and always delivers. I couldn't ask for a better partner. Thank you for the Star Tears concept and for making me sound like I'm a halfway decent writer. Idk where I'd be without you Kait. 
> 
> Also thank you to our betas! You're amazing and I appreciate all the time and effort you put into looking over this fic. 
> 
> starksnack: i just want to preface this by saying it was written by both an American and a Canadian so if the grammar and spelling is a bit inconsistent, I apologise haha.
> 
> special thanks to our lovely betas [tar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onelaststand/pseuds/Five4Fighting) and [steve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu_hawk/pseuds/aisu_hawk). 
> 
> i learned about this concept thanks to [this tweet](https://twitter.com/rchimedesu/status/1246209686682185730?s=20) on twitter so be sure to check it out! i would love to see more star tear disease fics written.

Steve always feels like he’s eons behind everyone else when it comes to pretty much anything that matters. It’s what they call him after all. The man out of time. The man who was the world moved on without. Ironic how he became Captain America in part to protect the people he cared about and being Captain America was what had torn them apart. So when he meets Tony Stark and sees behind the overly cocky Iron Man persona, well... everything just seems to make sense again. 

Tony is the one who grabs onto him with both hands and bodily hauls him into the future with patient smiles, words that spill past his lips a mile a minute, and the most beautiful brown eyes Steve has ever seen in his entire life. He explains things to Steve and even though everything comes with a healthy serving of sass, Steve knows Tony is genuine. Has proved how much he cares a thousand times over in battle. The trust is non-negotiable and ever present. It’s what anchors Steve to this new and unfamiliar time.

Sure, he isn’t from this time and there’s a lot he doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t stop him from understanding that people like Tony are few and far in between. The last person who Steve had trusted and believed in so wholeheartedly was Peggy and she’s gone now; a relic of a time that Steve is no longer entitled to.

Coming to terms with the past was difficult and finding peace with the present proved to be even harder. Somehow, Tony made everything seem like it wasn’t as pressing and overwhelming and suffering. Like he wasn’t suffocating underneath all the time he’d missed but sailing high above it on Tony’s mechanical wings.

It isn’t long before Steve realises there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Tony. He’s a force of nature and he truly doesn’t need anything from Steve, and yet he’s there and he’s asking for Steve’s company, offering his expensive time in exchange so they can explore this new and brilliant future together. He’s patient and kind and funny and everything Steve needs to properly settle into this brilliant existence. Tony embodies the future, the best and worst of it though somehow Steve has always painted him in kind glory.

The knowledge of the Tears though, that’s something he keeps with himself, even in this new time period in his life where he has plenty of people to lean on. He could indulge his secrets with anyone on the team and they would support him wholeheartedly but something stops him.

The tears are a familiar red and gold, he knows exactly who he’s crying for. These colours stain his fingers for hours after bouts with his paints, detailing the armour from every angle and the man encased inside twice as often. Steve has had the privilege of getting to see Tony’s eyes up close and knows that they’re flecked with the same shade of gold with hints of green like crushed emeralds scattered across his irises. The red is Tony’s favourite colour obviously, pure and loving and hot and fiery. Everything Steve loves about his best friend spills across his skin for all to see.

Despite the pain scratching down his cheeks, Steve thinks the stars are beautiful. They’re a physical representation of the ache he feels inside when he isn’t with Tony. The desperate longing to feel his best friend against him as they watch movies or trade silly stories from their childhood or sit and ruminate in comfortable silence after a battle.

Steve revels in the quiet sound of his tears. It’s a dead ringer for the steady whine of the arc reactor that only his augmented hearing picks up when he’s close to Tony. It’s only fitting that Steve hears the sound of Tony’s mechanical heart when he cries his love out for the other man. Steve has always been a sucker for symbolism and here his tears are, the biggest omen of them all.

Gathering up the tears, Steve decides to keep them. They’re so beautiful he can’t bear to throw them out. He’s always been a force for good and Steve thinks he’d like to turn his pain into something incredible. He decides he’ll mix them into his watercolour for a painting for Tony. It’ll be a beautiful gift, he knows. Perhaps the last thing he’ll ever paint.

Steve is no stranger to Star Tear Disease, he’d seen it as a child and he knows it’s accompanied with eventual colour blindness. It’ll be terrible when all the red and yellow leaks out of his colour receptors, but it’s worth the affection he feels for Tony.

There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Tony. He won’t ruin their friendship just to ease his own suffering. He knows that for sure. He’ll accept his death gladly. He’s never shied from it before.

When he tells Tarleton to seal the core with him in it to save the world, the one thing he regrets most is that he never got to paint that picture. It would have been so incredibly beautiful. Steve imagines it as the light from the core swallows his form with arid heat. His mouth feels dry and for the first time, he doesn’t feel like he’s on the verge of tears. He still loves Tony though. Loves him with everything that he is.

As he dies he thinks that he would give anything just to see Tony smile one more time.

***

From the moment that Tony met Steve, he’d been in awe of the other man. There was just something so genuinely good about Steve Rogers. It made sense that he was Captain America, you only had to stand close to him to feel the air of confident justice swirling around his presence.

In Tony's eyes Steve was everything he aspired to be and more. Good, kind, and loyal to a fault. It was only natural for their professional relationship to progress into an amicable friendship until it wasn’t often that Tony was seen without Steve by his side. On missions they were flawless, each knowing what the other was planning before a word was uttered. That seamless ease flowed into their shared leadership of the Avengers, supporting each other wholeheartedly even as they disagreed about the specifics. At the end of the day, when Tony was buried in work at the lab, Steve was there to talk him through his worst problems, rolling about in his wheely chair with his sketchbook in hand.

Tony always wanted to be around the blond. He wanted to build a bigger team and make the Avengers a well known force for good. It was the sort of endeavor that required two people to really get off the ground and Steve was that other person. There was no one else he would rather have at his side.

After A-Day, his stars are a beautiful shade of cerulean, glittering as they leak excruciatingly from his eyes. Tony had always known something like this would happen. He’d only ever heard of this in childhood fairytales, but of course if monsters and magic were real, this tragedy of epic proportions would be too.

Getting close to Steve, admiring him from afar. It would always end up like this. Another tear drips down his cheek of its own volition. This one is a bright crimson, winking up at Tony as he gathers it onto his palm. It’s probably the most patriotic thing he’s ever done in his whole life and it’s going to kill him.

Agony is a flaming heat building in his tear ducts as the stars push their way through to spill beauty down his cheeks. They get caught in his lashes pricking at his eyelids. They’re not sharp enough to draw blood but fuck, they hurt almost as badly as loving Steve.

Because that’s what this is. The cost of loving his best friend.

A whimsical twinkling accompanies the tears, not unlike the sound Steve’s dog tags make when they’re not pressed to his chest by the tac suit he wears on missions. It’s a music that Tony associates with Steve laughing hard enough to shake the tags loose from where they sit between his, frankly, huge pecs. Tony had expected it to scream like shooting stars the way he’s observed in astrophysics, but when has biology ever agreed with anything he’s ever studied.

After some waffling, Tony pulls up his Stark tablet to do some Googling. Usually he would strut into Bruce’s lab and brush away the scientist’s arguments of not being  _ that _ kind of doctor, but after his betrayal, Tony has nowhere else to go. He’s all out of friends and he can’t help but drown in the pangs of loneliness that brings - because it’s all his own damn fault.

Star Tear Disease. The internet tells him it’s deadly. It's not a very well-documented disease, officially at least, because it's been romanticized in the media for years but it's very real. As real as the glittering abominations clumped in his palm and soaked in tears. A grin curls onto Tony’s face. Maybe he’ll have enough to make his own American flag of unrequited love. Perhaps Steve would get a kick out of it.

The stars are bundled up into some tissues and thrown into the trash. Even though he would trust the people on board with his life, Bruce and Kamala included despite everything, he doesn’t want to talk about this. Doesn’t want to admit that he’s in love with someone he lost a long time ago. How pathetic he must be to fall in love with someone who’d left him. 

It’s a very physical thing because once Tony notices it, well... he can’t ignore it. So he forces himself to figure out how to cure it because there’s no one else who can, or should, in his opinion. Tony may be a lot of things but at the moment, ‘forgiving’ isn’t one of them, so Bruce will stay a non-option possibly until his dying day. Whenever that is. 

As far as he can tell there isn’t a cure other than finding out the person he’s crying for loves him back. It’s impossible because Steve is long gone, but Tony has always been one to deal in impossibles.

For now, he’ll just deal with it. 

***

The spaceship is freezing.

Steve has always run hot, but for the first time, his fingers shake with how cold he is. His skin is tinged with a blue pallor he hasn’t seen on himself in years.

Tony is warm against him though and Steve focuses on the whine of the reactor pressed against his chest. The glass is warm even though the metal of the armour is frigid to the touch. Tony feels familiar against him from years of the media dubbed hug-and-fly and Steve feels like he’s coming home. He only gets to hold Tony close for a moment before forcing himself to ask if Tony really, truly is hugging him. He honestly can’t believe it himself, but Tony is tangible beneath his trembling fingers.

This must be what heaven is like, Steve ponders before reality crashes through and the pull of the probes across his chest makes itself known as he shifts. He can’t believe he’s alive. Can’t believe he gets to spend more time with Tony.

The moment Steve stumbles, Tony has an arm under his shoulders, helping him out of the on air lab toward the corridor back to the airlock. Tony is saying something about an escape pod that’s their ticket out of here, but Steve only nods absentmindedly, instead focusing on the warmth in Tony’s voice.

Over the years, Steve has learned to read him like a book he’s had his whole life to memorize. He can pick out the relief in Tony’s relaxed brow, the joy in his crow’s feet that he always denies having. There’s concern in the line across his forehead, but Steve is confident he’ll be able to smooth it out on the way home with their easy camaraderie.

An “I love you” is on the tip of his tongue and Steve realizes how unbelievably stupid he had been to not tell Tony the extent of his feelings before he’d almost died. He feels like crying in relief but he doesn’t want to in case the stars make an appearance. 

Steve wants Tony to know of his love, and yes, a big part of him wants it to be returned, but he doesn’t want Tony’s piteous affection if he learns Steve’s stars are for him. Doesn’t want Tony to say he loves Steve only for the tears to continue proving his words false.

They stumble toward the door and somehow make it out to the escape pod alive. Steve thinks Tony might just be his lucky charm until they’re faced with imminent death. Then he wishes Tony had left him to rot on the spaceship. At least then he wouldn’t be taking Tony down with him.

It’s been five years and Tony wears it well. He’s always aged like fine wine and even the bags underscoring his eyes look sexy to Steve. He resists the urge to grin at the thought. They’re facing probable doom, it probably isn’t the best time for Steve to be chuckling at how he’ll always think Tony is beautiful even if he was dressed in a garbage bag covered in grease.

Steve wants to tell him now. Just blurt out his affections. There’s an inkling of fear spooling in Tony’s coffee-coloured eyes, swirling as he looks at Steve almost pleading with him to make it all better. There are jokes coming out of his mouth, but he’s never been able to fool Steve with a fake-out and they both know it.

Before Steve can force the words out of his lips, finally tell Tony about the emotions that have had the better part of a few years to build up, they’re getting saved by Thor and Tony’s face lights up. He leans forward in his seat to excitedly wave at the god who winks in return.

The wave of jealousy that Steve feels knowing that he isn’t the reason for Tony’s genuine smile is vicious. He knows that it’s misplaced, but he wants to make Tony happy, and he feels mildly like he’s failed. He wasn’t the one to get them out of this situation, even when Tony looked up at him with so much hope.

Tears are pricking at his eyes, but Steve squeezes them shut even though it’s excruciating to keep the tears in. He presses his fingers to the corner of his eyes and takes a deep steadying breath. If he listens closely, he can almost hear the whine that accompanies the glittering stars, but he convinces himself it’s Tony next to him and not his own tear ducts trying to betray him to the love of his life.

***

It’s a couple of days after bringing Steve home that Tony finds him crying in the hangar. He didn’t mean to stumble on such a personal moment, but he walked in to get his HARM training done and heard a sound that was suspiciously similar to the arc reactor generator he’d had in his facilities before the government and AIM seized all his assets.

There shouldn’t be any arc reactor technology onboard the chimera save for the repulsor technology that puts them in the air and the glowing night light in Tony’s chest. Fear is a cold fist around his rabbiting heart as he crosses his fingers that some Shield agent isn’t stealing his coveted tech to build their own knockoff.

When he rounds the crates he’s surprised to find Steve and shock forces him back a step. His gaze is hazy, focused somewhere outside the window as they pass through the pink clouds. The sun is setting, casting the world in hues of pink and purple. It’s a beautiful view, yellow rays brightening Steve’s dirty blond hair.

Steve is wearing the jacket Tony pilfered from him so many years ago. It pulls deliciously across his broad shoulders and Tony’s fingers twitch with the desire to run his fingers up Steve’s arms to his chest, press his palm against Steve’s left pec and feel the steady thumping of his beating heart.

Tony’s own is in overdrive, desire and want pressing his heart painfully against the arc reactor as butterflies wreak havoc in the cage of Tony’s ribs, tickling his lungs with the need to whine, a desperate sound that wants to leak out of his mouth at the thought of not being close to Steve.

That’s when Tony sees the tears. They’re dripping down Steve’s face as he looks out at the world spread beneath their feet, a blanket of clouds tucking skyscrapers in for nightfall. Tony knows from experience that they’re excruciating but Steve doesn’t wince at the pain. Instead, he looks out at the sky as though waiting.

Probably for the person he’s crying for because obviously, Steve is in love with someone who isn’t him.

Jealousy curls sick and hot in his stomach, the flames torching the wings of the butterflies that had just taken up residence there. Tony makes a hasty retreat, worried that an agonized sound will break free from his chest like that of a wounded animal. He has no right to Steve’s heart but that doesn’t calm the acid racing through his veins as he clenches his trembling fists.

Tony sets his course for the HARM room. He needs to beat the shit out of an AIM bot or three before he holes himself back up in the lab. He can’t create again until he destroys the ugly feeling inside of him, leaching like poison into his heart. He doesn’t want his affection for Steve to be something terrible, doesn’t want to taint his love for Steve with childish jealousy.

Five hours are spent in the HARM room until red, white, and blue stars glitter across the floor and the tinkling of Steve’s dog tags echo on repeat in Tony’s protesting ears. The pain in his eyes is not as excruciating as the damning knowledge that Steve’s heart is set on someone else.

***

Between taking down AIM and rebuilding Shield and putting their broken team back together, Steve doesn’t get to spend any time really talking to Tony. The most privacy he’d really gotten with the other man was when he’d walked into Tony’s quarters, dead set on confessing his love, and distracted himself with the jacket he’d found hooked on the edge of a desk drawer like a prize.

When Steve is back in his quarters later that night, he berates himself for not telling Tony about his burning love. When he brings the jacket up to his nose it smells undeniably like the other man. Leather and Tony’s expensive cologne linger in Steve’s nostrils as he falls asleep clutching the jacket, glittering stars in red and gold sticking to his cheeks in salty tear tracks.

He’s careful about hiding his tears. He doesn’t want them to undermine his confession of love for Tony. He spends a lot of time in the hangar looking out at the sky. It’s a beautiful shade of blue that sometimes reminds him of the arc reactor. Tony spends so much time hiding it from view, ashamed of his perceived inadequacy. His reliance on something so small to keep him alive.

Steve wants to make him feel beautiful. Wants to gather him up and press tingling kisses against the glass and tell Tony that the arc reactor doesn’t make him weak, it makes him stronger than he could ever know.

If Steve doesn’t get his shit together and tell Tony he loves him, he might never get the chance to make Tony feel beautiful and precious and cherished the way he deserves. Steve always hears people badmouthing him for the blood staining his past, but no one ever praises him for the beauty he’s made of the future.

Steve finds himself a spare Saturday with nothing to do. There isn’t any training on the schedule and Jarvis tells him that Tony is in the lab so Steve hopes perhaps Tony can fly them down to the city. They’re stationed somewhere over Washington state and Steve wants to take Tony to an ice cream place he’s heard rave reviews about.

When Steve enters the lab, it’s dark. Confusion furrows his brows and apprehension chokes him quiet as he scans the room for Tony. At the very least, the arc reactor should be a dead giveaway.

He spots Tony leaning against his workbench looking out at the sky. His shoulders are hunched around himself and he wants to gather Tony against his chest and hold him close. That’s when he hears the hitching sobs, sympathetic tears pricking in his own eyes as he purses his lips.

Whoever hurt this beautiful man will face the wrath of Steve’s shield. He won’t be gentle, because if there’s anything Tony deserves, it’s every happiness the world has to offer him a million times over and Steve will bleed before he denies Tony something that will make him smile.

And yet while Steve wants to give Tony the world and everything in it, it’s impossible to ignore the cause of Tony’s pain. His beautiful best friend is hurting because he’s pining for someone who apparently doesn’t recognize and treasure the love Tony has for them. Regardless of their ungratefulness, they still  _ have  _ that love and Steve doesn’t. It’s the sort of thing that makes Steve’s insides twist up painfully because he wants to be the person that Tony turns to but Steve can only take so much. He can only pretend he’s unaffected for so long. Steve is only human. 

If he stays here in the lab and makes his presence known to the other man, then he’ll have to swallow his feelings and be there for Tony unconditionally. But with every passing second and heartbroken sob Steve hears, it becomes increasingly harder for Steve to just push down his own feelings for Tony. 

It’s impossible and Steve is a coward so he employs a tactical retreat and leaves the lab before Tony can realize he was ever there. 

***

After the time Tony accidentally catches Steve shedding those painfully crystalline tears, so excruciatingly similar to Tony’s own, he becomes very aware of every instance Steve slips away from the group, worried that he’s leaving to go cry on his own and desperately wanting to comfort him. Tony knows the feeling, knows how much his heart aches with every tear he sheds in the privacy of his own quarters.

Given how tentative the bond between the Avengers is at times after everything that happened with A-Day, it would have been so easy to dismiss Steve’s squeamishness and excuses for anxiety after his time on the pod but knowing what he does about Steve’s unrequited love, well... it changes things.

It isn’t necessarily Steve disappearing because he needs time away from the others, given how they all live together again and are always out on missions together, but more so that he could keep his tears a secret from the people who would worry the most about him. Tony understands, after all, he’s doing the same thing. 

And that hurts because, on one hand, he likes to think he and Steve are best friends and who else is supposed to listen to whining about stupid feelings and potential heartache other than a best friend? It’s practically in the job description. Simultaneously though Tony completely understands why Steve would keep his tears a secret, there’s a certain shame with loving someone who doesn’t love you back

Tony’s heart skips a beat as it dawns on him. Does Steve not trust him anymore?

The very idea that the blond might not trust Tony sends fire and acid racing through his veins. The feeling of not being good enough is suddenly overwhelming, though Tony understands that it isn’t exactly something anyone wants to disclose, even to their closest friends. The very implication of having Star Tears Disease was tragic, a pure failure of the human heart. Much less actually admitting to it? Yeah, no. If Tony wouldn’t share the knowledge, no wonder Steve didn’t want to either. 

But Tony wants to know. He feels an insurmountable urge to shake the mysterious source of Steve’s pretty tears. How can they let Steve just ruminate quietly in his hot anguish like that? Tony knows Steve won’t share, he’s too much of a gentleman for that, so it would have to fall to Tony to put his genius brain to good use and figure it out.

So he watches Steve’s interactions with the others in the hopes that it will reveal some sort of attraction Tony had been blind to before. As observant as he is in the lab, when it comes to people, he isn’t always the best at reading emotions - especially the people who are closest to him. 

Thor? There is obvious warmth and mutual respect between the two. Tony watches him banter with Steve at the war table, talking about a potential mission. Thor amicably punches Steve in the shoulder and he rolls his eyes affectionately. They’re the only two who can take the full strength of the other and that has formed a bond between them. There’s a deep friendship, but definitely nothing romantic.

Bruce is still somewhat of a sore subject for all of them, even Steve who hadn’t been around for the whole betrayal of trust after A-Day. Steve talks with Bruce quietly, leaning against the vending machine as Bruce sits with his knees pulled to his chest on the couch. There’s a weariness to Steve, though. It will take a while for the trust to be rebuilt between them, between all of them, so that rules him out as relationship material.

Kamala is a non-option in every conceivable way, as she should be, and that just leaves Natasha.

Natasha makes so much sense that Tony almost wants to smack himself over the head.

Natasha in a lot of ways is Steve’s right hand for all intents and purposes. She is always the first one, Tony notwithstanding, to check on Steve after missions and she is always quick to rise up to help Steve with whatever he needs. The warmth that infuses Steve’s voice every time he sees her and calls her by her name is pretty hard to ignore, especially now that Tony is listening for it. Tony had always mistaken it for friendly affection, but now in the face of Steve’s tears, his heart aches. Steve’s voice always drops slightly when he murmurs  _ Nat  _ and proceeds to give her a soft smile. The smile should have given him away. It’s a private smile Steve reserves for her.

He’s incredibly jealous. Steve never smiles at him like that. Because he’s not enough and he never will be.

The more Tony thinks about it, the more it makes so much fucking sense. Who is the one person that Steve could fall in love with, out of all of the Avengers, who would be emotionally unavailable? Who would choose to reject the possibility of love in favor of maintaining a solely platonic relationship? It could only be Natasha. 

Tony knows that Natasha’s views on romantic relationships are incredibly cynical, a remnant of her Red Room training that she’s never shaken off, and so he can almost imagine Natasha  _ knowing  _ about Steve’s feelings and purposefully ignoring them. She is and has always been for wholly unavailable and even Steve Rogers can’t change that. 

And poor Steve probably doesn’t know that regardless of how much time he waits for her to return his feelings, she won’t. How can Steve ever get over her and stop crying those excruciatingly beautiful tears? Steve and Nat have to talk, even if it hurts like a bitch to do so. 

But who knows? Maybe Tony is wrong and Natasha isn’t as cold as he’s building her up in his head to be. Tony and Natasha are close, but the friendship she has with Steve is very different. Maybe Steve is Natasha’s only exception. And even if he isn’t maybe Tony can play matchmaker and make it happen. Maybe if he tells her that Steve loves her then she’ll consider returning his feelings. 

Maybe things would be okay if Steve just said something. 

Tony wants to help Steve and if that means confronting the super spy and possibly losing his balls, then so be it. Even if it kills him on the inside and shatters every hope of having Steve to himself. It wasn’t like the hope had any standing anyway. Tony would gladly sacrifice his happiness to end Steve’s needless suffering.

Steve is a far better man than Tony ever could be, and he deserves every single happiness the world has to offer him. After everything he’s done for the world, he deserves his own happily ever after, even if it isn’t with Tony. If he has to confront Nat and kill the waning inkling of hope that Steve could love him back, then that’s what he’ll do.

Setting his mouth in a grim line, Tony takes a deep breath. This conversation will be his undoing, but the consequences of not doing anything are far worse, and the last thing Tony wants to do is stand by while Steve hurts. He’d bleed before not doing all in his power to keep Steve from suffering undue pain.

***

Steve often finds himself in Nat's company. He thinks the two of them are quite similar even if he wears his heart on his sleeve and Nat keeps her cards close to her chest. They have similar strategic minds, are both fairly observant, though Nat always ribs him about being more oblivious than a walnut.

They’re both sitting on the couch in the rec room, enjoying each others’ company. Bride Wars is playing on television, it’s Clint’s favourite show after Dog Cops and Natasha still watches it even though the archer isn’t a member of the Avengers anymore. Sometimes Steve misses him, they haven’t talked in a while and Steve should reach out soon. Sighing softly, Nat shifts to prop her feet up on Steve’s lap. She arches an eyebrow at Steve, daring him to say something, but he doesn’t, and instead begins dutifully massaging her feet.

“What do you know about Star Tear Disease?” Steve’s voice is soft as he looks up at Nat from under his dark blond lashes. He doesn’t know how to broach the topic without her finding out that he has it, but he’s unwilling to spend time beating around the bush.

Nat wrinkles her nose, head tipped to the side and red hair falling in her face as she studies Steve carefully. “It’s very painful. I’ve read about it,” Steve tries not to smile at the thought of Nat and her bodice rippers, he’d caught her with one once and she had promised to tear him a new one if he’d breathed a word about it to anyone else, “but I don’t believe that it’s real. Love is for children.”

Steve nods absentmindedly, “Yeah.”

Nat pokes him in the tummy with her fuzzy-socked foot, pushing the breath out of him with an oof. He mock-glares at her and she raises both of her eyebrows in question. She always seems to cut to the heart of every problem. “You crying over Tony?”

“What-?” Steve sputters, flinching back as though her words are a physical blow. His eyes widen and he shakes his head vehemently. “Of course not- no, Tony is just a friend, I don’t- we don’t- could never...” Natasha just cocks another single brow at him disbelievingly and he sighs, resting his head in his hands. His ears are hot as a telling blush races across his cheeks. Nat always reads him like a book. Most days he doesn’t mind, but today it just makes him feel defeated. “Yeah, I’ve come down with it.”

“Oh Steve,” her voice is tellingly soft as she purses her lips. It’s the most emotion Steve thinks he’s ever seen from her. Her feet disappear from Steve’s lap and she wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him toward her side. “Just tell him.”

“I can’t,” Steve chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut against the telltale prick of the stars. They’re for Tony, he won’t cry in front of Natasha.

The sound of shattering ceramic startles Steve and he looks up to meet Tony’s surprised gaze, the engineer’s mouth is dropped open as he glances between Steve and Nat. Steve can tell the other man’s brain is working a million miles a minute, probably assuming things that aren’t true.

Before either Steve or Nat can get a word in, Tony is mumbling that he’ll have the clean up bots come up to clear his mess for him while he backs away, brown eyes wide and hands up in front of him in what Steve recognizes as a protective posture. Tony on the defensive is something Steve had never imagined would be directed at him and he doesn’t know how to react quickly enough. Tony about faces and practically runs out of the room before Steve can do anything. 

“Tony, wait!” Natasha cuts in, her voice sharp, but Tony is already gone, muttered apologies about interrupting following him out.

“Shit,” Natasha whispers and when Steve shoots her a confused look, she just puts her head in her hands, disappointment heavy in the air.

***

“So,” Tony smiles at Natasha as he comes up beside her at the War Table. “You and Steve, huh?”

Natasha smacks him upside the head muttering in Russian. Tony recognizes it as “idiot” because he’s heard it directed at him far too often to not understand exactly what she means. He deserves it though. For falling in love with someone who will never love him back.

Ducking his head, Tony admits defeat. “I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t know about you two.”

Nat just rolls her eyes, lip curled in a way that lets Tony know he’s truly fucked up. “You are the dumbest genius I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.”

Tony smirks at her, though the insult rankles against his thin skin. He buries her words in the deep recess of his mind to examine later. “I guess I am.”

She shakes her head, pulling Tony against her and rubbing his back. He hasn’t been hugged in so long, usually Steve fulfilled his physical affection quota, but lately Steve has been avoiding him. Maybe that was his way of telling Tony he wasn’t interested in anything romantic and Tony was just too stupid to notice. Dumb genius was right. 

When Natasha pulls away, Tony shoots her a watery smile. It drops off his face the moment she hits him upside the head again.

“You know,” Tony frowns, irritated, as he rubs away the sting. His words are coupled with a glare. He knows it was shitty of him to pine for Steve when he was hers, but she didn’t have to hurt him even more than he already was, “You’re killing highly intelligent brain cells every time you do that.”

“Well, clearly they’re not serving you well if they’ve somehow led you to the conclusion that Steve and I are together,” she bites back, arms crossed over her chest as she cocks a hip to the side. “C’mon Tony. What’s going on?”

That’s why Steve is still crying, Tony realises, a new hatred for Natasha burning his throat like he’s going to expel the disgust he feels in a vomit of vitriol. She’s putting Steve through hell and back all because she won’t give him more than friendship. And Tony knows he’s being unfair in his judgement, that his indignation is misplaced, but he can’t get the thought of Steve’s forlorn look as he stared out the window out of his head. Natasha has everything Tony has ever wanted and she isn’t cherishing it.

Despite all of that, Tony feels like telling Nat about Steve’s tears would be a betrayal. Then again, if Tony dies first, he’d want someone else to know what is happening to Steve so they can help him, or at least comfort him as he goes.

“He’s dying,” Tony whispers hoarsely, the words forcing themselves out and cutting across his tongue. “If you just love him back, he’ll be okay.”

Natasha startles in a way that Tony never thought she could. She actually flinches back, shock crossing her features before she’s composing herself back into an impassive mask. “You know about the Star Tear Disease?”

Just the thought of it brings glittering tears to Tony’s eyes but he holds them back, blinking hard against the pain. “Yeah, I saw him. He didn’t see me, though.”

“Tony,” Natasha sighs his name like he’s a petulant child. It makes Tony feel small and insignificant. And he is, because there’s nothing he can do to help Steve. He looks down at his toes in shame, feeling the first tear slip down his cheek. She cups his cheek, with a sad smile, brushing away the first red star, then the blue one. “Tony, how did you manage to do this to yourself?”

And then he’s laughing through the tears, because somehow he always finds a way to do the impossible. To turn heads and make it against all odds, he’s done it so often that it is practically his MO at this point. He’d have to find a new defining trait, though, because despite his track record, he’ll never be able to get Steve to love him back.

“I don’t know Nat. I love him, and he loves you,” he says it simply. It’s just another fact in the grand scheme of things, a grain of sand in all the information stored away in the great big beach that is his head. He tried to make it seem like a meaningless star among the galaxy of Tony’s life but Steve has always been his sun. “I’m sorry.”

The last thing he wants is for her to feel guilty about being the object of Steve’s affection. She deserves someone good, and kind, and pure like Steve. They are both similar in so many ways and Tony can only imagine how beautiful their kids are going to be if they decide to have any. Natasha can give Steve the American dream. They can retire from the Avengers, have their 2.5 kids and a dog and a white picket fence.

Thankfully, the Star Tear Disease would take Tony before he had to see it all. He wouldn’t get a chance to be jealous of them both, they didn’t deserve that from him. He wants to be so incredibly happy for them. He  _ is _ happy for them, even if his body was at war with his own thoughts.

“Steve doesn’t love me, Tony.” Nat has an iron-clad grip on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her, now. Her green eyes are fierce and Tony wonders if this is how so many men have fallen under her heel. He is honoured to be one of them. Then he registers her words and his mouth drops open.

“What?”

“Just tell Steve how you feel before you both get thrown off the ship.”

***

Steve is sitting in his quarters picking shimmering stars off of his face to put into a mason jar he’d stolen from the science lab. It’s kind of morbid for him to be collecting what will eventually kill him, but he’s set on making one last painting for Tony before he croaks and he wants all of his love to be laid out on the canvas.

The gentle whine of the arc reactor comforts him enough that he doesn’t mind the searing pain that accompanies it. His unblemished canvas is set up against the wall, large and unassuming - despite the pain it will bear soon.

A knock on his door almost startles the jar out of his hands and he clutches it tightly to his chest like it holds his whole world. It kind of does, because Steve’s love for his best friend means everything to him. Gently, he caps the jar, shoving it under his bed and hoping whoever is at the door isn’t hoping to check under there for dust bunnies and declarations of love.

Steve takes a deep, steadying breath, cleaning his face off and popping his head into the bathroom to make sure he looks presentable. His eyes are red, but he’s gotten much better at staving off the tears long enough to make brief appearances around the Chimera.

When the door opens, Steve is surprised to see Tony on the other side, wringing his hands in what looks like nervousness if Steve didn’t know him better. He is always confident and sure of himself, especially when he’s with Steve so to see him so anxious sets Steve’s teeth on edge.

The last time he’d seen Tony, the other man had been running away from him and Natasha. Steve hasn’t figured out why yet, but he hasn’t been too keen on seeing Tony when just the thought of the other man was enough to bring back the painful stab in his tear ducts.

“Are you busy?” Tony asks, and Steve has never heard him sound so small, never wants to hear it again. He would build monuments for Tony just to show the other man how much he is loved and appreciated.

Steve smiles easily, resists the urge to press his fingers to his eyes as though pushing the tears away. He steps back from the door, gesturing for Tony to come in. “For my best pal? Never.”

Tony snorts in what Steve feels is derision, though his Tony playbook hasn’t gotten much use these last few weeks. When Tony steps by him, Steve gets a noseful of his cologne, it’s the same ridiculously expensive one he’s always used and it makes Steve feel like he’s home. Suddenly he longs for all those times they’d spent pressed against each other on the couch, or training together in the harm room, or standing side by side in debrief after a battle well fought.

All this time, Steve’s been avoiding Tony for fear of being found out, but now he knows what a fool he’s been. He could have been using his last few weeks getting closer to Tony, loving him wholeheartedly, and damning the consequences. It was another chance Steve had missed, and he wouldn’t be getting another one.

Suddenly he wants to apologise to Tony for being so undeniably stupid.

“So, I love you.”

Steve chokes on thin air and Tony’s head flies up from where he’d been looking down at his hands, picking at his nails. “Oh my god,” Tony immediately rises to his feet, thumping Steve on the back as he struggles to get his breath back.  “Shit, are you okay? Oh my god I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were allergic to declarations of love. We don’t have to do anything about it, I just wanted to te--mph--”

Whatever Tony had been about to say, Steve kisses it away, pressing his lips firmly against the smaller man’s. As far as first kisses go, it’s kind of a mess. Their teeth clack together and Tony is laughing wetly against his mouth but that just makes it so much more perfect. Steve can feel the scratch of Tony’s goatee against his chin and he knows he’ll have beard burn tomorrow and Nat will tease him to hell and back but he doesn’t care, he’s so surprised and pleased and happy all at the same time.

Tony pulls away, a megawatt grin stretched so far across his face that Steve thinks it could power the entire world. He can live off of this joy for the rest of his life. Abruptly Steve realises that he can see the gold flecks in Tony’s warm, hazel eyes. He hadn’t even realised he was starting to lose colour in his vision until it was staring him right in the face. Tony is panting a little bit, his chest rising and falling and Steve can hear the whine of the arc reactor but it isn’t coming from his petulant tear ducts, instead it’s humming beneath his fingers as he presses his palm to Tony’s chest just to feel the life buzzing against his fingertips.

“I love you too, you know.” Steve grins, and he’s crying now too, can hear it in his voice as he leans forward to steal another peck from Tony. The tears are nowhere to be seen though and it’s the perfect confirmation that Tony truly does love him fully. It’s exhilarating being able to do this, to have Tony in a way that lets him press their smiles together.

“I can’t believe we were both crying over each other,” Tony laughs against Steve’s chest, and Steve loves that they’re hugging again, has missed the easy affection passed freely between the two of them before all of this.

“You’re the only one I would spend my tears on,” Steve whispers. He knows there’s a dopey smile on his face, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. His knees are wobbling with the force of his emotion and he sits down hard, bringing Tony with him. They both kick off their shoes and Steve leans against the wall with Tony sitting across his lap, leaning his head against Steve’s shoulder.

Tony is reverently brushing his fingers over Steve’s dog tags, listening to the soft clink they make as they shift against each other. Steve can’t help but look at him, open love on his face. He’s close enough to count Tony’s lashes, to map out the barely there sunspots freckled across Tony’s face with age. He’ll never take this amazing man for granted ever again. He can’t believe he did in the first place.

Soft brown hair is tickling his neck and Steve turns his head to press a kiss to Tony’s locks, breathing him in. He’s employing his eidetic memory to immortalise this moment in his mind forever and he knows Tony is doing the same with that genius brain of his.

“Have I mentioned that I love you?” Tony asks, tipping up his face to grin shyly at Steve. He can’t resist ducking his head down to meet him in the middle, sealing their lips together and melting in a soft kiss. This one is a lot less hurried than their first one and Tony sighs happily. He tastes like coconut chapstick and coffee, so undeniably Tony that Steve can’t help the flip his heart does.

When Tony licks across his lower lip, Steve willing opens his mouth to allow him in. Steve’s never been able to say no to him, would always give him anything he asked. Steve gently pulls away first, loving the way Tony’s lips are wet as he looks up at Steve in wonder. There’s so much tenderness in his expression and Steve is so grateful he gets this part of Tony that no one else ever will.

“You may have mentioned it,” Steve responds and when Tony’s brow furrows in confusion, he kisses away the lines. “I love you too,” he clarifies and Tony gets it, shaking his head and burying a chuckle in Steve’s shirt. He loves the melody of his laugh and wishes he could bottle them up along with the tears. Something happy to go with his sadness.

Tony is beautiful, happy and safe in Steve’s arms the way he deserves to be. The smile on Steve’s face is so wide it aches.

The jar of tears under Steve’s bed are the last ones he’ll ever cry over Tony Stark.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! be sure to drop a kudos and comment <3  
> find [diana](https://twitter.com/lmao_thvnder) and [kait](https://www.twitter.com/starksnack/) on twitter!


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